The present invention comprises a new and distinct pineapple variety of Ananas comosus, hereinafter referred to by the variety name ‘Honey Gold’. The variety has been developed by using clonal selection within the parent population. The process started at the end of 1997 using material from the hybrid Tainung 11 (also known as Perfume pineapple in Taiwan)(non patented). The original seedlings were asexually reproduced using stem cuttings and crowns (asexual seeds). The pineapple plant ‘Honey Gold’ was developed through mass selection at the research area of Corporacion de Desarrollo Agricola Del Monte, S.A.Pindeco, Buenos Aires-Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The process of mass selection took five years of consecutive plantings and selections.
The main objective of the selection program, was to obtain a pineapple variety with a nice tasting fruit, that would keep the original aroma, with fruit of an appropriate size and shape, but distinguished for having a higher concentration of ascorbic and citric acid, brix or soluble solids, an fewer plant slips, with respect to the parental line.
Personnel in Buenos Aires-Puntarenas, Costa Rica, have developed this new plant. From a group of 19 crowns (asexual seeds) (original parental population) obtained through personnel in Hong Kong, the process of sowing began in Buenos Aires Puntarenas, Costa Rica, by selecting the plants with better characteristics through three generations.
The clone selected after all this effort, resembles the original parental material, but it is distinquished by its higher sugar (TSS), citric acid, ascorbic acid levels, and also by the fewer slips per plant and fewer spines in the leaves.